March-
In the beginning of March I traveled to Hamburg along with 25 other CBYXers for our 'Halbzeit camp' or in english our half time camp. There along side the other CB kids we toured the city, took a boat tour around the harbor, and got to talk about our experiences so far. My favorite part of the week was when we got to learn about how the homeless people living in Hamburg live, and toured a company who produces a magazine for the homeless to sell. It was interesting to see how organized everything was and how many people take part in it. While talking about out experiences I realized that compared to the way exchange 'should' be my time has seem to go against the norm. I have had no extreme low points and have not suffered from homesickness. I have also been lucky enough to get an awesome host family on the first try and didn't have to switch like a lot of the other exchange students. The camp lasted for 5 days and I was glad to be able to experience it.
Towards the end of March I traveled to the Netherlands on bus with my host family for a day trip to Amsterdam. The weather wasn't the best it could of been, but we all made the best out of it. we first took a tour through the canals which was pretty cool. I thought Pittsburgh had a lot of bridges until i saw Amsterdam. The houses there are also really cool, they line the canals and make it seem almost of if the streets are tunnels. I was also astounded by the amount of bikes there were. I have never seen so many bikes in my life. Normally you have to worry about getting hit by a car while crossing the street, but in amsterdam you have to worry about getting hit by a bike. After the boat tour we took time to explore the city on our own, and just enjoyed our time there. I was suprised to see how small Amsterdam actually was. All in all besides the weather it was a really good trip and I am glad I got the oppurtunity to go there.
April-
In the beginning of April I traveled alone to Heidelberg to visit the students from Norwin who traveled to Germany with the German trip. I was really excited to see my Alexandra after 7 months of not seeing her. We walked up this mountain / big hill to see from the top of the Heidelberg Castle. Then we walked through the city some and then eventually went to this resturant and ate, and then took a bus to Frankfurt to spend the night in hotel with Alex before they flew back to the US the next morning. The next morning the school left pretty early to make their plane on time so I then took a taxi to the trainstation and traveled back to Reken while they traveled back to the USA.
I got home on Friday from Heidelberg, and then Sunday was Easter. On Easter we spent the day at my host grandma's with the whole family and then during the evening I went to an Easter fire. An Easter fire is pretty much a giant bon fire and a lot of people go to hangout on Easter. I was alot different than how Easter in in the US mainly because I would never imagine after spending the day with family to then go hangout with my friends at a bon fire!
Then on Monday we all woke up early and started our road trip to Berlin! It took around a total of 6 hours which wasn't bad at all. In the US it is a lot different with driving, it is normal to drive 10 hours to go on vacation but here driving more than 2 hours or so is not normal! From where I live in Germany I could drive 30 minutes and be in a different country, but driving 30 minutes in the US means you finally made it to Sam's Club (hahaha). Anyways in Berlin we did alot in the time we were there. The first day we were in Potsdam and went to Sanssouci which was the former castle of the King of Prussia. The weather was really nice this day and it was fun walking around the castle and all the surronding buildings. The next day we took a tour through Berlin and go to learn a lot about the history of Berlin. The tour ended in the glass dome at the top of the Congress's building. I also went to the Wax Museum with my host sister which was really fun and creppy at the same time. Some of the figures look extremely real and it was a little frightening. Other than that we did most of the touristy stuff and the stuff we didn't have time for i am sure I will get to do when I go back to Berlin next month!
Towards the end of April one evening my host mom, sister, and I took a trip to Münster to this street carnival and it was really fun. We rode a ferris wheel and got to see a nive view of Münster and we ate delicious carnival food and walked around. Luckily the weather was really nice which made it even better.
May-
Then came The First of May, which added to the list of German holidays that I don't completely understand. We started the day off around 11 or 12 when we grilled and ate outside and then eventually we piled all of our drinks along with music into this wagon and then set off to walk around 9 kilometers which took a little more than 3 hours to a field filled with other people with their wagons, drinks, and music.You are probably thinking "who in the world would to that?" or "that doesn't sound like fun at all!", which is surpisingly untrue. It was actually pretty fun and luckily we didn't have to walk the 9 kilometers back to our house like some other people did.
Then comes PARIS! I got to go to Paris with my school's French class even though 1) I do not take French and 2) I cannot speak a word of French. Luckily since Paris is a tourist hot spot a lot of people can speak English there so it ended up being okay. We had a lot of free time and so we ended up being able to see alot. Lisa did her research and had everything pretty well planned ( I don't know what we would've done without her actually) and so we hit pretty much all the big sight seeing spots along with a few of these pretty cool 'insider' places. we saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and Sacre Coeur, and the Opera. I would definitely have to say my favorite part was the Eiffel Tower at night, it is such a touristy thing to say but it's true! There is really nothing like it and the view from the top is also really nice. The only downside to Paris is how ridiculously expensive it is there, but other than that I really enjoyed my time there.
I think I managed to get most of the main things I've done in the part view months in this post without making it too long or boring. Other than that things are going really well here and the time is running out (quicker than I want it to) and I have a little less than 2 months before I'll be home. It is crazy to think I have been here over 8 months because at times it feels like I just got off the plane. It is even crazier to think that I have learned a complete new language in less than a year. The next month and a half will be pretty busy and the first two weeks of June I will be traveling again so I will try to keep updating my blog this time.The count down has begun!
PS- Sorry to all my German friends who have to read this in English , next time I'll write in german too
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